Melissa Gilbert on ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Reboot: ‘Time for Someone Else’s Interpretation’
Melissa Gilbert is 100% behind Netflix’s upcoming Little House on the Prairie reboot.
On Jan. 29, the streamer announced it was working on a new TV series based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic series of children’s novels. The books were first adapted for the beloved 1970s-80s TV show Little House on the Prairie, which starred Gilbert as Laura.
The news that a new Little House series was in the works was greeted with skepticism in some quarters. Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly took to X to declare that if Netflix tried to “wokeify” the show she would make it her “singular mission to absolutely ruin your project.”
Gilbert quickly responded to Kelly’s comments, pointing out in an Instagram post that the original series tackled a laundry list of tough issues, including “racism, addiction, nativism, antisemitism, misogyny, rape, spousal abuse and any other ‘woke’ topic you can think of.”
Melissa Gilbert defends original ‘Little House on the Prairie’
In a new interview with EW, Gilbert said she originally intended to stay quiet about the reboot because she wanted “them to have their own thing.” But she felt compelled to defend the original show and its legacy.
“Did you watch the original? Have you seen the episode ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’? I don’t think we get more woke than that,” Gilbert said, referring to a season 3 episode where Todd Bridges played the son of two formerly enslaved people who runs away to Walnut Grove because he wants to attend school.
“I mean, we covered everything that’s going on in the world still. It’s not my job to defend the word ‘woke,’ but to my mind, it just means compassion for all,” she added. “I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing, and I don’t think anyone can ever convince me of that.”
‘Little House’ reboot is a new interpretation of old stories
Gilbert pointed out that the new version of Little House on the Prairie will just be another interpretation of Wilder’s stories, adding that the Michael Landon TV series strayed pretty far from the source material. She also said the new series could embrace more inclusive casting, including hiring Indigenous actors to play Native American characters, something the original show often failed to do.
“I think there’s room in the Little House universe for all different kinds of stories to be told — just like there was always room in the Little Women universe to keep retelling that story,” Gilbert said. “These are classic stories, and no one’s done it where they hewed to the books completely. [The original] was Michael Landon’s interpretation, and now it’s time for someone else’s interpretation. And I think there’s plenty of room for that. And I think there’s a lot of other stories to mine beyond that. So I think this opens the door in a lot of ways for all kinds of Little House on the Prairie projects.”
Little House on the Prairie is streaming on Peacock.
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